


baby, aim true

by boyghosts



Series: We Were Meant For These Times [1]
Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Blowjobs, Gang-typical Violence, Implied Ashoreiji, Knife fights, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Shorter Lives AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 08:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18656593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyghosts/pseuds/boyghosts
Summary: Shorter thinks: Ash is movement and heat and a knife pointed at Shorter’s throat, and the punk doesn’t even know it. Shorter thinks,I’d walk into throwing range for this asshole, just to pluck him out of the air, because someone has to, right?Or: This is how you win a knife fight.





	baby, aim true

 

“You bastard,” Shorter growls, “why you always gotta scare the shit outta me? Only you would make such a fuss so early in the goddamn-”

“Need you,” Ash murmurs, wedging his blonde head between the door, elbowing it shut, then pushing Shorter up against it. Shorter’s breath rushes out of him. Ash’s own smells like three cigarettes, cheap vodka, and ibuprofen, in that order.

Shorter will check the time if it isn’t too dark to see the wall clock past Ash’s head. A little past 2 AM, he guesses. The karaoke session from down the street has long succumbed to the night.

Ash presses himself close, closer, like he’s trying to escape his own skin.

“Whoa, cowboy.” Shorter tries to go for teasing. “Slow down-”

Ash’s fingers, which were fumbling insistently on Shorter’s belt, go still. “Where’s Eiji?”

“Asleep. Passed out in the living room waiting for your sorry ass, had to carry his-”

“Good.”

Shorter’s mind reels from how easily Ash peels himself off of him to stalk into the dark, too quick for Shorter to glimpse his eyes. Wordlessly, Shorter follows, shaking his head; someone was in a _mood_.

They pass by the living room, the open kitchen, then the bedroom door. Ash doesn’t hover by the doorjamb, like Shorter knows he does every time he thinks one of them is asleep, like he’s trying to commit something to memory. This time, he sleep-walks ahead without a glance.

When Shorter emerges into the end of the hallway, Ash is already in the bathroom. Shorter’s throat tightens with each step; he’s surprised Ash has turned the light on. It haloes the hallway and makes the glaze in his eyes come alive.

The fear is pure residue, Shorter knows, but he can’t help it; sometimes Ash goes home like this, like doesn’t realize he’s a knife just waiting to be thrown. Shorter has seen lesser men walk into spell of his tilted mouth and underestimate the trajectory; he knows what happens next.

“Lemme see you,” Ash says, suddenly in his space. Shorter wants to say, _I should be the one saying that_ , but lets Ash manhandle him on the tub’s edge, spreading his thighs apart, his hands everywhere but where Shorter wants them to be.

Shorter thinks: Ash is movement and heat and a knife pointed at Shorter’s throat, and the punk doesn’t even know it. Shorter thinks, _I’d walk into throwing range for this asshole_ , just to pluck him out of the air, because someone has to, right?

He holds Ash’s hands still before they can curl over his belt loops again. “Hey, slow down, you ass,” he laughs, tugging him up, then moves to kiss him - missing, on purpose. His lips land awkwardly on sharp cut of Ash’s nose, and Ash goes still as a doll. Shorter says, “Where’s my _I’m home_ kiss _,_ oi? No ‘ _sorry for making you wait, my love, but I rushed home as fast as I could because I missed you so fucking much_ kiss for me, huh?”

An uncoordinated sound slips from Ash’s mouth, low and surprised; for a brief moment the haze in his eyes scatters. And then Ash looks at him, quirking his mouth into a jagged line. Shorter’s heart stutter-steps at the sight.

“Oh, my bad,” Ash says, first taut, then sinuous, a cocktail of everything that’s bad for Shorter’s health. He rises to his knees as if to pour himself into Shorter’s throat. “Lemme fix that.”

 

* * *

 

How do you win in a knife fight?

Easy; you empty yourself. You think no thoughts. You glean everything that isn’t calculating the weight of the knife in your hands seconds before ribbons of skin and blood and that fucker’s guts. The less you carry, the less you lose.

Shorter is 20, Ash 17, careening towards a war they will not come back from, but it’s okay because no one expects to live past 40 in this dead-end town anyway. Ash has embraced his street rat destiny and Shorter will never try to leave this city, so they practice with markers in the alleyway until one of them drives a point into someone’s heart and pretends to choke on their own blood.

The trick is this: you show no cards. The ones you do, you burn; everything you have will be turned into arrowheads against you. At this point, your hands learn not to shake. And you kill the fucker, because if you don’t, he kills you.

 

* * *

 

 

They sharpen themselves into a near-perfect edge, until they meet a nebulous gang on the outskirts of town and the mirage shatters. After Ash cuts down their leader another one simply takes his place - like a centipede that has its head cut off simply growing another one.

It’s a cost-efficient, rational mechanism; sentiment’s nothing but privilege, after all, especially for street rats like them. He should know better.

 _The less you carry_ , Shorter echoes, watching Ash watch him, and shivers. Deep in his soul, he knows-

This is one weakness he cannot fix.

 

* * *

 

 _How do you win a knife fight?_ ceases to be the question of the day until Sing bounds into his life. The kid adores him, despite it all, and Shorter wants to shake him and demand  _why?_ just as much as he preens under all the attention. Sing Soo-Ling has the kind of eyes that are strange and sharp and far too clear-seeing for a fifteen year-old. The kid never asks him how to win; instead, he wants to know: _who you swingin’ that blade ‘round for anyway?_

Shorter thinks of Nadia’s wrists, the sound Chang Dai makes on a good night, his grandmother’s heritage tea cups and the toes of children he will someday but most likely never have. He thinks of Ash, his smile that so often feels like something he’d dug out of pocket - impossibly worn and soft around the edges, something he’d thought was lost forever, but still, miraculously, _here_.

What’s a guy to do, right? Shorter can’t help it if he’s a cheesy family man. It’s in the blood, to be loyal to the grave. Ash is real lucky that way.

Shorter’s about to tell him this until something white-hot explodes somewhere in his body. _Right_ , he remembers. Getting lost in thought is Ash’s thing, not his - but here he is anyway, like a goddamn rookie, breaking knife-fighting rule # 1.

He sees Ash’s face splinter like the finest china where he stands watching on the sidelines, seconds before a scream rips through his throat, and Shorter wants to grin, tell him, _hey_ , _this is nothing_ , or even _chillax, dumbass_ , wants to say, _you’d ruined me long before this, baby._

 

* * *

 

 

Ash’s hands are like brands on his thighs, and suddenly the room is too small, the tub too much like ice cubes beneath his palms. Ash presses his cheek into his clothed dick, and Shorter shudders to his toes.

Ash opens his eyes and casts the hook. “Fuck, can I?” Ash says, wetting his lip. His hair is mussed. Shorter nods, too quickly. _Caught_.

His tongue shrinks into the back of his throat as Ash works him out his boxers. Shorter’s hard already, but he’s too out of it for any embarrassment to sink in. Ash’s eyes turn heady the moment he has Shorter’s girth in his hands.

And then his tongue darts out. Traces a hot line up the underside of his cock up to the slit, and Shorter feels his guts fall from beneath him. Too late, Shorter sinks his teeth into his own fist to muffle the sound - a low groan slips past his lips and quivers into the tiles.

“Damn.” There it is: that smile, sharp and pleased. Hook, line, and sinker. “And we only just started.”

 _(You’re gonna be the death of me_ , he tells Ash once, coughing wetly, _gonna die before thirty, never gonna leave this goddamn town_ , the smell of fresh pennies everywhere, everywhere; he still means it, maybe always will.)

Shorter mimics the shape of it, all teeth. Guides his dick back into the seam of his mouth and grants Ash permission to flay him whole.  

“Well? Chop chop, we haven’t got all day,” Shorter says, which makes Ash chuckle softly. And then Ash takes him into his mouth and the rest of his sentence dies a quick death on his tongue.

 

* * *

 

Ash is nothing if not efficient. He moves the way he does everything else - that is, with a fluidity and single-mindedness meant to get a job done the best way possible. Which is also to say, Shorter is going to die.

“I’m gon’ die,” he tells Ash this, which means, _every blowjob you give me feels like The Motherfucking Blowjob of My Life,_ all capitals. “F-fuck," he babbles. "Gonna - gonna come.”

Ash eyes snap open with a crow-like hunger. His mouth slides off Shorter’s balls with a wet pop, and it's enough that Shorter almost teeters completely off the edge.

“Good?” Ash asks hoarsely.

Shorter nods. Hands scrabble along Ash’s shoulders, trying not to hold on too tightly or buck up into that holy heat. He won't say it, but Shorter prides himself in control, just as much Ash prides himself in picking him apart.

When Shorter shudders into the fall, Ash doesn’t look away.

 

* * *

 

 

After, it's Ash who thanks him. "There you go, darling," Ash mock-coos, tucking him neatly into his jeans. Pats him mischievously on the crotch. "Thanks for the treat."

“Shouldn't I be the one saying that?” Shorter squawks. He pushes his hair out his face, then reaches for Ash’s fly. “Let me-”

Too quickly, Ash angles his body away. "Not in the mood for that," he says curtly. He curls back beside Shorter, then casually rests the back of his head on the tub's edge, the length of his body uncoiling; suddenly, all the sharpness in him starts to seep out.

Shorter swallows around the heat in his throat. “Whoa, alrighty then. Thought this relationship was all about equality and reciprocity, but that’s cool, that's cool. We can chill.” The disappointment doesn’t last though, and Shorter doesn’t push; he trusts Ash to tell him what he needs.

They lie there for a while, letting the chill from the tiles settle comfortably into their skin, until Shorter’s breath returns. He watches Ash’s chest rise and fall. Basks in this odd picture of an Ash Lynx in stasis, fingers empty and open on his lap. Shorter wants and wants and _wants_.

And then, the lynx moves. Reaching inside his jacket, he pulls out a half-sized manila envelope and lets it fall to the floor with solid thump.

“I did it,” Ash announces, eerily calm. “Got the last of it.”

"Last of what?"

Ash is shaking his head. "-naive," he's saying. "Of course they'd keep a - a fucking back up. Should've known pigs always bury their food. Isn't it funny? Just when you think you cleaned out the worst of it - you check back in after a few days, and the whole fucking place is dripping muck. Just more shit - more than you thought was possible, hidden under the floorboards. Didn't think there'd be so much of it. Just so much fucking - _god_ , Shorter." 

The rest of it peters off into a soft misplaced laugh. And then it's quiet again.

Shorter lets the moment settle. He observes the scene in pieces: 1) Ash taking out a cigarette, 2) the strange thickness of the envelope, then, 3) the slight tremor in Ash's fingers the moment he produces the lighter. Something uncorks itself inside him then, something ancient and acidic and-

"Hand me that motherfucking lighter." 

Ash starts at that, eyebrows drawing.

"Give it here," Shorter says, his voice sounding odd to his own ears, as his fingers reach over to nick the thing from Ash's hands. 

"What-"

"Gonna burn it, all of it, gonna- or so help me _god_ , Ash, hand me the fucking-"

A hand stills his wrist. "Stop it. I can't. I'm giving this to Max tomorrow, for the case. Calm down, Shorter."

"The case?" His static-fried brain stops, reboots.

"Yes. Remember? We're ending it tomorrow. I swear. It's over." Ash releases his vice-like grip on Shorter's wrist, and distantly, Shorter notes the white bloodless stripe his fingers left on his skin; he must've really lost himself for a moment there. "Okay? It's over. No more."

( _No more_ , Eiji chokes out, taking the knife from Ash's grip to let it clatter to the floor, takes the gun from Shorter's hands, his own fluttering to press against every open wound. His hands reach over to bring them both close, tighter than any tourniquet. _No more, no more, no more-_ )

Slowly, Shorter nods. "He better end it."

"He will. We'll win. I trust Max - he's good at what he does, if nothing else. Stubborn old fart," Ash clucks his tongue, "almost as stubborn as you."

"After the case," Shorter insists, " _then_ I'll destroy them." 

A surprised, tired laugh. "I don't think it works that way, bud."

Shorter takes the envelope restlessly in his hands, feels the horrific weight of it. 

"Max will take care of it, or I'll haunt him for the rest of his sorry life, and he knows it," Ash says. "You know he burned the first batch of evidence too? Stupid jeezer." Something soft glimmers in Ash's eyes. "Almost got myself killed today just to obtain those pictures - hey, don't tell Eiji that, alright?"

Almost, Shorter wants to tell him,  _Eiji knows much more than you think he does, he deserves as much_ , but Shorter can tell the difference between a request and a semi-conscious attempt at pretence. Too late, Eiji has already twined himself too tightly into the knot of their lives, but they'll both pretend he can pack his bags, take the first plane back home anytime, unscathed. Helps them sleep at night.

For Ash's sake, he says, "Sure, you loser. Scared of one little man?"

"Can't help it if he's in charge of my daily meal plan." Ash shudders. "Would hate to eat that natto junk for the rest of my life."

"You're a real princess, you know that?"

"Well, this _princess_  would like to smoke one little cigarette in peace, if that's okay?"

"Royal pain in the ass, too," Shorter snorts, then pushes himself up to his feet, stretching out the crick in his neck.

"Where you goin'?"

"Getting a princess a glass of water. Anything else you need, yer Highness?"

Ash is staring up at him, the end of his cigarette smouldering. All of a sudden, Shorter is struck by a memory of a 16 year-old Ash, hunkered down in the cold at Chang Dai's back alley as he waits for Shorter's shift to end. Shorter gets one glimpse of him during his cigarette break - his mouth tight and his stomach mutinous - and goes right to assembling a hot pot. It's some of his best work.

The less you carry-

"Nah, I'm good," Ash says eventually. And then, even quieter: "Thanks, Shorter."

Shorter nods. Makes his way out the bathroom. 

Before he takes the last step outside, he stops. Turns around and says, “You know I’d tear apart any motherfucker who tries anything on you, right?”

Ash touches his chest. “That's so sweet, babe.”

“I'm serious, _christ_  - read the mood.”

A pause. “Yeah," Ash breathes, exhaling all his lion-sharp edges. Smiles - a worn, gold thing in his pocket. "Yeah, I know.”

“Good," Shorter says, hovering awkwardly by the door. As usual, his hands don't know what to do with themselves, so he shoves them in his pockets. "Good.”

 

* * *

 

"Get up - _fuck_ \- I know you're alive," Shorter hears - more ragged, desperate breath than fully-formed words, but they cut through the fog in his head like searchlights. "S-shit, fuckers really did a number on you, huh? You look even uglier than before-"

"You fucking punk," Shorter manages. "You love this ugly mug."

Above him, Ash laughs, loud and relieved. Something wet blooms on his cheek - rain, or a bloody kiss? Distantly, Shorter realizes he's broken knife-fighting rule # 2, too - _don't lose your goddamn knife_ \- but that's fine, because Ash is slipping something else into his hand - his very own prized Smith & Wesson, whispering, _hey jerkface_ ,  _hold on to this for me_ , _won't you_ , which is also to say, _I got you, I got you, stay awake a little longer for me, okay?_ before Ash steps back, leaves him on the cold concrete, and jumps back into the fray. 

Not for the first time, Shorter folds a hand to his chest, and prays. Somewhere in the distance, a choir:

 _Alleluia,_ Ash’s knife sings.

 

* * *

 

 

When it's over, Ash drags him to his feet with a bloodied gash of a smile and Shorter thinks: _too late, I’m through, there's no hope for me now,_  Jaws theme song on loop in the back of his mind. Thinks of his juvie counselor, telling him to  _pick your battles, boy_. Thinks of Nadia, his sweet best sis, whispering quietly:  _that white boy’s bad luck._

The less you carry, his own mind echoes, and Shorter thinks back: who gives a fuck. This is how you win a knife fight: you sling your arm around this boy's shoulder, let him stem the blood on your thigh, let his laugh disassemble all that's essential in you. You win when you let him walk you home, lean your weight on his arm as you stumble on the path, name all your weak spots - not for any other reason other than because they're yours, and maybe, just maybe, they'll call you theirs, in return.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> 🔪🔪🔪
> 
> honestly speaking, this was supposed to be 80% more porn.... but shorash just makes me feel so *indie garage rock playlist 24 hours*
> 
> (speaking of, there's a lyric reference somewhere in here, lets see if anyone catches it lmao)
> 
> anyway, i love these kids, and i'm planning to add this to a series involving ashoreiji + sexy fun times, so look out for that! meanwhile, i'd love to hear what you think <3 you can also find me on twt [here](https://twitter.com/boyghosts)


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